Pro Fishing Tournaments. Good idea or bad idea?

We live in a society where ESPN devotes an hour of prime time programming to the announcement of where one NBA player has decided to take his game after leaving Cleveland. King James indeed. And maybe you noticed the front page ink an aging NFL quarterback got when he decided to unretire. We thrive on competition and love those who win. But how far should we take this obsession with competing? Should we, say, have a contest to see who can bag groceries fastest? Should we make fishing, a simple recreational sport for 99% of us, a high-buck, media-splashed contest? The answers are yup and yup.

There are 30,000 fishing tournaments held across North America every year. The great majority are small town promotions intended to turn people and their wallets out. Some lucky angler wins a new boat and dollars are raised for good causes. I think these tournaments are great ideas.

But I'm not so sure about the hundreds of fishing tournaments featuring the so-called pro anglers. It depends on your personal perspective. If I were VP of Marketing for Evinrude or Berkley or Shimano I would think these tournaments are fabulous. Why? It's the same thought chain that finds kids (or their parents) shelling out $200 for a pair of Air Jordan basketball shoes. If I wear those shoes my hang time will at least double. Won't it? And if I buy that top-end Shimano reel that Ted Takasaki uses I'll be hoisting those lunker walleyes just like him. Won't I?

From the perspective of the fishing pros these tournaments are just plain wonderful. Besides the jaw-dropping prize money, their boats are supplied by Tracker. Their terminal gear is supplied by Rapala. Their reels by Shimano. But who's supplying their fish? Um, that would be you and me, pal. Our sales and other tax dollars fund the DNR who provide the resource. And were you to witness one of these tournaments, as I have, you might wince at the way the pros thrash your favorite fishery in their against-the-clock battle to win the tournament. The way they shake smaller fish off their lines to save unhooking time. The way they rooster-tail it up the lake to get to the next piece of structure. Time's a wastin'.

And what about those winning walleyes in the publicity shots? South Dakota State University biologists conducted a study of delayed mortality in tournament walleyes at Lake Frances Case. They found water temp makes a huge difference. In April tournaments just 2% of the fish later died. But in June tournaments 79% died.